The Dream-Follower
A DREAM of mine flew over the meadTo the halls where my old Love reigns;And it drew me on to follow its lead:And I stood at her window-panes;
And I saw but a thing of flesh and boneSpeeding on to its cleft in the clay;And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,And I whitely hastened away.
Words in this poem
- whitely a.
- Like, or coming near to, white.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Dream-Follower is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, The Dream-Follower, in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/the-dream-follower.html, id L16904.
Form and metre
The Dream-Follower is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is anapaestic common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB meadA · reignsB · leadA · panesB
- 2 ABAB boneA · clayB · moanA · awayB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A DREAM of mine flew over the mead | 8 | ········ |
| To the halls where my old Love reigns; | 8 | ········ |
| And it drew me on to follow its lead: | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| And I stood at her window-panes; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone | 10 | ·········· |
| Speeding on to its cleft in the clay; | 9 | /˘······· |
| And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan, | 11 | ······˘/··· |
| And I whitely hastened away. | 8 | ··/˘/˘˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.